How Often Should I Post On Social Media For Veterinary Hospitals?
Updated: May 30
When starting out with managing a social media account for a veterinary clinic, it can be a little daunting trying to figure out what to post and when. In this article, we want to shine some light on WHEN to post to the most popular social media platforms for veterinary clinics.
Determining YOUR Ideal Posting Frequency
When determining how often you need to post, we want to look at a couple of things:
What are your clinic's overall goals or purpose for using social media? Is it to grow your following to get new clients, build a community around your accounts, use it for a communication channel, or something else?
Where are you posting? Are you looking to post on Facebook, Instagram, and Stories on either Facebook or Instagram?
Knowing the answers to these two questions will help you strategically optimize your posting frequency and maximize the time spent creating and publishing posts. I'm all about getting those results as efficiently and effectively as possible!
PRO TIP: Getting into a good consistent groove with posting to any social media is key in training the algorithm that you are an active user of the platform and have great content to show your followers. Which is just one part of boosting your engagement rate on social media.
Looking for inspiration for engaging post ideas? Check out my blog here!
Now, if we are being realistic, we need to take into account one more aspect of your posting frequency, and that is your bandwidth.
It's important to take your time into account and reflect on what you can realistically do with the time and resources you have available. You need to design a posting schedule that works with the amount of time you have to create, publish, and monitor social media posts.
Without a clear understanding of how much time you have to dedicate to posting, you fall into the cycle of not posting consistently and witnessing your account not performing the way you or your clinic desires. Which ultimately leads to frustration!
Here are a couple of questions to help you develop a posting schedule that works for you and within the resources you do have:
How often would you like to be posting?
How often can you realistically post while keeping a consistent posting schedule without burning out?
What is the overall goal for our social media accounts, and can you realistically reach the goal?
What do you need to make this happen?
Do you need support in making this happen?
Getting clear on these questions will help you formulate what a good, flexible, and reasonable posting schedule looks like for you.
PRO TIP: Once you have your desired schedule designed, plan out your posts to help you stay accountable to your new schedule. This will enable you to visually see your schedule and help you prepare your upcoming posts ahead of time.
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General Guidelines to Get Started With Posting
If you are unsure how often to post, use these guidelines to get started. If you can post more than what is suggested here, do it! The more you post, the more opportunities your content and posts have to be seen and for people to connect with you.
I will share recommended guidelines for the two main and popular social media platforms for veterinary clinics as of 2023.
POSTING FREQUENCY: Posting to the feed at least 3-4 times a week. Stories 3-4 times a day during business hours.
WHAT TO POST: Share a variety of mediums of visuals (photos, videos, text-based posts, graphics, and Reels). You want to create a variety of posts that are centered on creating conversations and keeping people talking. The more interactions people make in the comments, the more Facebook's algorithm will recognize the post is getting traffic and will show the post to more people. This is the ultimate goal with Facebook posts.
HOW TO CONVERT FOLLOWERS: In your caption, you want to encourage people to talk in the comments, visit your page, or go to your website to do business with you.
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POSTING FREQUENCY: Posting to the feed at least 3-4 times a week. Stories 3-4 times a day during business hours.
WHAT TO POST: Share a variety of mediums of visuals (carousel posts/multiple photos, videos/Reels, and informational graphics.). Videos are currently performing the best for accounts across the board, but rotate through the different versions and see what works best for your account and audience.
HOW TO CONVERT FOLLOWERS: In your caption, encourage people to comment, visit the link in your bio, or tag or share your post.
If you plan to use these general guidelines, be sure to take note of the performance of your posts and what is and isn't working for you. Over time you'll be able to see what will work for your accounts and tailor the plan from there.
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What To Do Next
Determining your posting frequency is just part of the journey for those who manage the clinic's social media! It takes time to test and see what will work for your audience and your clinic's social media accounts. There is a lot of advice out there that claims a one size fits all approach to social media.
The truth is, no advice works for every business the same. So, take this as an exciting time to test, experiment, and see what results you generate. From there, see where you can tweak and improve and go from there!
Now, I'm sure you have more questions when it comes to posting for your veterinary clinic. If so, I have a FREE quick start guide that you'll find helpful!
In my FREE Quick Start Guide, I walk you through more on how to navigate posting for your clinic's social media accounts, how to create social media posts, how to get engagement, and more!
Download the guide today and get all your posting questions and more answered!